Logical
by Desdemona Kakalose
Summary: It all made sense, if you looked at it the right way. He should have seen it coming, but then again, who could have? All he knew was that somewhere between those agonizing shades of gray, he'd found black. Too late, though. Too late. ..oneshot..


:Logic:

It made sense, if you looked at it the right way.

L had been raised in grey. Sometimes, he wondered if there was even such a thing as true black—it was illusive, crouching in caverns of seafloors many miles below the surface, hidden from the eyes of men.

He knew, he'd learned years ago, that the 'black' of newsprint and gothic lace was no such color at all, but rather a sneaky shade of grey forever masquerading as it's erroneous cousin.

L grew hungry for black, starving and wild in a way that no amount of liquorish or chocolate mousse could satisfy. He'd known black, once. He'd know where he stood in the beginning.

Or, he thought, perhaps not. Maybe that was nothing but a desperate wish… The longing of a dissolving mind.

_"An eye for an eye, Light-kun."_

And therein lay the danger of living lex talionis, in telling yourself that the ends justify the means. Oh, your intentions were pure, weren't they? You had a goal; you were doing the right thing. But where do you draw the line? God, are there any lines at all?

He'd been so sure, he'd known why he did those things. There was black at the end of the spectrum, he'd SEEN it. Where had it gone?

Drowning, he was drowning in shades of grey and he was so _thirsty_. And then came Kira, the ultimate grey area. By then, L was working by muscle memory alone. He knew what he had to do, but why? He was like the answer to a question he couldn't remember asking. The man had heard that somewhere, once.

Action, without purpose, drive without reason. The ghost in his own machine.

Was he really as evil as those he persecuted? What was a victory worth if you lost yourself along the way? Who won then, really?

_Really_?

Then, like the too-subtle-to-see fade from day into night, there was a hint of black. It was only an inky shadow, twisting through reality—dawning on him in the blinding glow of a laptop one night, as the pieces finally fell into place.

Misa. Amane Misa, the second Kira, self-proclaimed girlfriend of Yagami Light. She was all of these things, yes, but she was also a brushstroke of black on his painfully indefinite canvas of a life.

Misa knew good, Misa knew evil, Misa acted and knew why. Her shading was spun on its side, her sense of right and wrong criminally skewed by conventional definitions, but no less distinct.

L found himself craving Misa Amane in the same soul-burning way he craved definitives. He didn't need to agree, he need somewhere solid to stand his ground, somewhere that wasn't always shifting.

_why_ was it always shifting?

Was it any wonder that his thoughts strayed to her on these long nights? Any wonder that as he lay painfully awake beside his infuriating friend, his oh-so confusing enemy, he thought of the girl?

She was so many things he would never be, a yin for his yang to speak Taoistically. Simple, but intelligent; brave, but naive; driven, but still passionate. Not only had she kept her humanity in the face of an inhuman world, she had loved a man enough to die for him.

On no level could L say the same.

At first, she had irritated him—he'd always had a problem of underestimating people. But time brought a gradual understanding, time led to something below the plastically cheerful exterior. He never told anyone about it.

She never said a single serious word to him… But he knew.

_"I think I could fall for a girl like you."  
_  
He saw her every day. She was beautiful, almost painfully so, but that never mattered to him. What mattered was that she was not, and never would be, his. Black, always in sight and yet out of reach.

L could have no happy endings, he knew this. One of them would die, surely as all leaves one day turn to brown, and then the other would…

Would…

If he died, would Misa have her fairytale ending? Would she live her happily-ever-after? Triumphant, the bloodstained queen behind her ice prince? Somehow, he doubted it.

Misa was destined for tragedy as much as he was himself.

_"Your reflection is exactly like you, you know, but reversed."_

Maybe that was what convinced him. Maybe it was the undeniable hand that fate had dealt them, God's poker game was rigged damn it, maybe that was what made him so it.

Like waking up on the morning of Armageddon, L knew he had reached the end--this was the day of reckoning.

Funnily enough, it was never Light he worried for, but her. Though it was depressing to a degree that surprised L, he felt that the boy had sealed his fate a long time ago. Kira had made his choice. And L was far less tolerant of the new (or was it old?) personality that came with Higuchi's death. Misa, on the other hand…

Misa was different.

Passing in a hall. Hideously cliché. But there they were, yin and yang at a stand off in the passageway. How allegorical.

The detective looked long and hard at her, memorizing every inch of skin, every line in her beguiling face. No matter what happened, he would remember her like this—no more forced cheerfulness, wide blue eyes finally, finally on his level.

Maybe she knew, maybe she didn't. But she saw him.

He raised a hand, slowly like one would before a wild animal, and wrapped his pianist fingers around her wrist. As if he were moving through water rather than time, L pulled her forward, close enough that their bodies brushed. A hand on her shoulder.

"Misa," he sighed, looking over her head and into some distant future, painted in shades of sapphire blue and crimson. "I… _please_… remember me."

He kissed her softly then, a touch that was fleeting and full of sadness. It spoke of years of searching and a truth found far too late. Gentle and without demand, and he knew that she would never tell a soul. It was a moment for the two of them alone.

_"Can you hear the bells, Light-kun?"_

He pulled away, after a moment that was far too long and far, far too short. There's would be no questioning the bells now—if you hear them, they toll for you.

It all made sense, if you thought about it the right way.

* * *

Comments? Critique?


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